Airlines, hotels, car rental companies, and other businesses have fixed short-term inventory and low variable costs. For such businesses, capacity utilization is a critical determinant of economic performance. Inventory is defined by units of time (hotels, for example, sell one-night stays for specific nights) and is perishable (if a specific night is not sold, that inventory cannot be recovered). Complex forecasting tools have therefore been developed to help businesses project future demand. Based on such projections, a hotel, for example, can raise prices when excess demand is expected and lower prices in anticipation of surplus capacity. In addition, a hotel can launch marketing campaigns, such as a summer weekend specials, designed to boost sales during low-demand periods. While these marketing efforts may increase sales during specific periods, they have substantial inefficiencies. First, as they are typically planned well in advance, marketing campaigns ordinarily cannot react to actual conditions as they evolve in the marketplace. Second, campaigns are ordinarily broad-based by nature, targeting broad demographic groups rather than individuals with plans or preferences directly relevant to the campaign. Current marketing tools, in other words, do not allow the marketer to identify consumption patterns in advance of marketing communication.